Messages - caprea

Yet again it's amazingto see how much work people put into analysing dublin's spending but do f**k all for their own county. Have a look at Cork's plan and tell me how much funding they should get in your opinion. God knows Galway can't be trusted with any grant money.

Have you any idea how many ex county players have been involved in coaching underage teams in Dublin. They don't get paid for it, but they are giving back to the county. How many other counties can say that in football or hurling.

I actually feel sorry for some of you that instead of enjoying watching some of the greatest players ever like McCarthy, McCaffrey and Cluxton your begrudgery,bitterness and or jealousy leads you to claim their success/ability is down to money.

How about channelling your energy into something positive lime demanding your club/county managers actually play football instead of the safety first defensive rubbish introduced by McGuinness and Donegal. That might actually encourage people to attend games. Galway v Monaghan last week for example was two of the top sides playing sh*t football that no one wants watch, yet people blame falling attendances on dubs domination.

Mayo fundraised 1.761 million euro over 2016-17. Dublin raised 161k over 2015-17. It doesn’t sound to me like Dublin are making much effort at grassroots level to raise funds from their fans. They are lucky to have the GAA as their main sponsor so they don’t have to raise their own funds.

I have been told some of the gweedore lads went hard on the sauce over Christmas which would be frustrating for the lads that didn’t. You only get one crack at games like this if you are playing for a fairly unheralded club like Gaoth Dobhair. Maybe its not true at all, I don’t know.

If rural Ireland is unsustainable then the present intercounty system in GAA is unsustainable so what’s easier to do? Write off the county of Dublin in its present state or write off the entire rest of Ireland?

If Dr. Crokes win their semi, it would mean 3 Kerry clubs within a 5 mile radius would be in the 3 Club All Ireland finals

Dr Crokes, Kilcummin & Beaufort all in Kerry division 1 league for 2019?

A Junior team in Div 1? They’ll be blown away

Beaufort won 4 games in Div 1 in 2018 (John Mitchels, Glenbeigh-Glencar, Kerins O'Rahillys and Killarney Legion) and had 1 draw (Rathmore). They finished 3rd from bottom, only a point below Killarney Legion and Dingle. They suffered their biggest loss of the campaign to Dr. Crokes, going down by 10 points. Other biggish losses were by 8 (St. Mary's) and 6 (Spa). Tight losses by 2 to both An Ghaeltacht and Templenoe and a one point loss to Dingle show they were not far away from picking up points.

Although relegated, they were far from blown away. The fact that they have no county men meant they had a full squad for all league games, barring the usual injuries, players on holidays and suspensions.

So Beaufort were in division 1 last year (of an 8 team league) and are playing in the Junior Cship.

4- the intercounty system doesn’t work. There are too many small counties who are making up the numbers and need to realign with other neighboring small counties to become viable competition to the big teams. Ireland is now an urbanized economy so the county system doesn’t work for small rural counties.

The reasons GAA will go professional are numerous but the main ones are

1- thats just how the global economy works in capitalism, income generators receive reward in line with the income they generate 2- every sport in the world works this way, to think the GAA is immune to this because its only played in ireland is nonsense. Ireland is a big economy and it will support the same economic eco system as any other global economy which means the big sports are professional sports.3- the intercounty players always win any arguments they enter into; the cork hurlers and footballers, the Galway hurlers, the Waterford hurlers, the newbridge or nowhere. The intercounty players simply have too much economic power to ever lose any argument with GAA bureaucrats. This argument will be big and bitter when it happens but eventually the players will win because there is no show without them.

Your third point about the GAA could withstand the impact of a GAA players strike, you ask what cards do the GAA hold?

Well they hold the cards where they bring in 50-70 million a year to the central association, more millions to the county boards and provincial councils.

They bring in further millions, practically countless millions, to the economy in general. All the restaurants, pubs, hotels, petrol stations, gardai, match staff, GAA administration staff, train drivers, bus drivers and taxi drivers who get huge income from match days.

The GAA would have to lay off a huge chunk of staff because they wouldn’t have the money to pay them if the players went on strike and there would be no work for them to do anyway.

So to suggest the GAA would be blaise about losing the intercounty game income is frankly a ridiculous notion.

It would become a big issue for the government never mind the GAA if the money tap from the intercounty game was turned off.